


The Mare

by TrashPanduh



Series: Nóatún [3]
Category: Midsommar (2019)
Genre: Animal Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Murder, Paralysis, Sleep Paralysis, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:08:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28608798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrashPanduh/pseuds/TrashPanduh
Summary: Christian and Pelle have one last conversation before the burning.More or less.
Relationships: Pelle/Dani(Implied) Pelle/Christian if you squint
Series: Nóatún [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2023907
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	The Mare

He wakes gradually, groggy and confused, to muffled watery voices going in and out. His consciousness trying to breach the sea line of cognizance, struggling through underwater currents and waves, desperate to reach the air above. Lifting the lids of his eyes is a weightlifting feat all its own, but he manages. 

At first he can only make out fuzzy shapes and smudges of beige, gold and white. Every which way the smudges move, streaming lines of visceral color follow. Several wilting blinks and the fuzz sharpens, becoming an old man and a small class of children he thinks he recognizes. 

It’s a dream. He’s dreaming, or maybe it’s a bout of sleep paralysis. It’s happened before, only a handful of times in his life, usually when he’s stressed or anxious. The dead useless limbs, the invisible weight sitting on his chest, the unmistakable sensation of being watched, it’s all familiar; even if this particular setting is not. 

He’s definitely in a type of class, from what he can tell, but this is not one of those waking up naked before an exam dreams. And he’s not sitting in a school. (The fuck is...-Oh Shit.)

It all comes flooding back to him with the grace of a sledgehammer to the face, but no one else seems to notice the quick nasally pants. (Fuck fuck fuck _fuck_ , holy shit this isn’t real, it can’t be real, I’ll wake up in a minute-) The old man, he had a conversation with that old man barely 4 hours ago. The kid poking at the dead bear, that was the kid from the freakish play last night-

-And there’s a dead bear. Of course there is.

He tries to speak, to yell, to scream, even to cry, and it feels like his mouth is moving, but it’s not. Nothing is. Nothing can. The only one speaking is the elderly man, pointing to various intestinal tissue, explaining in Swedish while the children remain fixated on every word. He may as well be a ghost. 

The bear, only yesterday that bear was alive munching peacefully from a trough of fish. More watery memories, ones more horrifying, take shape in the murky ether; there was a foot-Josh! He was.....

Something happened, it’s a bad trip, he’s still high, his brain is still mushy; there’s no way this can be real, it can’t itbeItCantBe. 

A spike of nausea summons a brief flash of terror over whether it’s possible to choke on your own vomit while still sitting up. He’s never felt this sick in a dream before, though. He’s also never been to Sweden, and couldn’t invent the runes lining their linens, or the graphic folk paintings covering the walls of the house. 

Its mid summer and he sits in cold stagnant sweat. This isn’t a dream. 

It’s a nightmare.

But its real..

It’s trudging through mud, sifting between the sluggish jungle of recollections and hallucinations. Josh disappeared, so did Mark and that couple from before. It was just him and Dani no-Dani! Where’s Dani?? Fuck, when did he last see her? He gave her cake for her birthday, they’d fought the other night or did he imagine that? Was she dancing before or was he tripping then? Why can’t he picture it?

He misses the light knock at the door, but not the face that pops in behind it. The sun warms the room through the open window while the air vanishes, like an airlock being opened; a sharp, incisive ringing filling his ears in its wake. 

That baleful smile was the last thing he saw, lying naked in blood, hay, and chicken shit. Pelle had made the briefest of eye contact with him, just before someone closed his lids.

He didn’t imagine that part.

However, Pelle doesn’t look at him now, he walks through the school of kids to receive a light kiss from the instructor. They exchange greetings and friendly chat with obscure gestures and jokes. 

One of the taller children tugs at Pelle’s shirt, murmuring something of note. He shakes his head, ruffling the boy’s hair. Whatever he said to him remains muffled through the growing restlessness of bored children, but he can parse out something like “ _Jag kan städa_.”

A gentle command and the class excitedly files out of the cabin, laughing, chasing and tripping each other through the doorway. He nearly bursts a blood vessel trying to move, to yell, to do anything besides breathe harshly through his nose and it’s so useless. Infuriatingly so. With the lessons ended, the old man claps Pelle on the back, playfully tugging at his ear before taking his own leave. Eventually it’s just the two of them alone.

He doesn’t know if it’s for the better or worse. 

He’s only wondering now if he ever knew anything at all.

Every muscle, every bone, in his body feels dead and on fire at the same time. He tries to catch his former classmate’s attention, but he makes no sign he even acknowledges him. He has no idea what is happening or why. Whether this is some sick joke, another bizarre ritual, or some form of vengeance for who the hell knows. His friend doesn’t appear burdened by the same predicament he is, and waves gleefully at one of the retreating children from the window. He chuckles, leaning against the table behind him, when the kid responds with a cheeky face before running off. 

Perhaps he’s dead already. He’s dead, and this is the afterlife: an eternity of impotently reliving your final moments. If he could just lift one hand, one limb, thats all he needs. It wouldn’t be much, but it’d be a chance, and that’s better than the hot sack of nothing he has right now. 

“I hope you’re feeling better.” The silence that follows is the only indicator that Pelle is talking to him. Instead of waiting for a response, Pelle pushes off his hands and turns around, circling the table to kneel before him.

“You hit your head pretty hard, back in the chicken coop.” He wants to jerk from the hand Pelle raises to his face, but he can do nothing but placidly sit while he thumbs down an eyelid, slowly running a finger in front of it. 

“I was worried you might have a concussion.” After another moment, apparently satisfied with whatever he finds, Pelle stands and rummages through select shelves and cabinets.

He not sure if its the drugs or if something else was done to him while he was out. It’s not a guarantee this paralysis is only temporary or if it is how long it will last. There are knives and utensils in this room, he’s seen them, he just has to remember where. Anything to defend himself when he finally can. 

“This must all seem very cruel to you.” Pelle comes baring a small bundle of tools and a sympathetic smile. 

“Your friends, your future, your dreams being stolen out from under you.” There’s a cloth near the small tool case he uses to gently clean some kind of giant metal pick. “You do not have to believe me, I doubt you will, but I understand. Truly.”

Something shifts, and he’s not looking around anymore, Pelle has his full undivided attention. Breathing deeply, locking eyes with the fucking rat, he tries to soothe himself with images of his scrawny throat crushed between his meaty palms. The look of shock and terror that would explode over his serene face. 

It almost works, and being angry is more comforting than being scared. 

As casually as any mechanic, or butcher, Pelle rolls up his sleeves and tugs on a pair of weathered buckskin gloves. Before he can think too much on what they’re for, he’s rounding the table towards him and all he can do is sweat and follow the movement. 

“This fear, the helplessness, the abandonment...yes, I do understand.” He reaches for the ties of his robe and tugs it open. “I felt similarly my first year in America, to be honest.”

With a strength he never would have guessed, Pelle lifts him into his arms with a heaving grunt. “At least you can say we fed you well, my friend.” He laughs, carrying his naked body to the still dripping bear carcass, as a groom would carry a bride over the threshold.

( _Nonono_ -)Instantly his muscles fire anew, screaming with the effort to protest somehow. The odor of warm day old meat fills his nostrils and his eyes water from the oppressive rot permeating the air. The slick gooeyness of coagulated blood, sinew and residual tissue press along his back and buttocks as Pelle tenderly lays him down within it. It’s sickeningly warm and the fear of choking to death on his own vomit is even more real than before.

Though it might be a more merciful end than whatever these sick fucks have planned.

Maybe all the straining didn’t completely go to waste because Pelle picks a tuft of stray fur away from his eye. “Much like my time in the States, this will be fairly unpleasant. But, if a snake never endures the pain of molting, it can never grow,” He offers him a soft brotherly pat to the cheek, leaving a small bowl by his head, “and it cannot remove any parasites that have become attached to it.”

It’s impossible to turn his head, and the hallows of the bear skin blind his peripheral vision when Pelle leaves to fetch something beyond his sight. It occurs to him then that this might be how he goes. Alone, cold and naked on a table, staring from a dead animal carcass, at the ceiling wondering where it all went wrong. 

Connie’s boyfriend was kept alive. Blind and gasping, strung up with his lungs pulled out of his pried open rib cage. He was still alive, possibly even now.

He blinks impotently at the wetness he feels gathering in his eyes, but it only pushes the few lone tears down his face to pool uncomfortably between neck and chin. He wasn’t even supposed to be here-

He wasn’t even supposed to fucking _be_ here! 

The ceiling is suddenly replaced with Pelle’s round face, a wet cloth coming over his forehead. “I know you are overwhelmed,” the rag twists in his grip over the bowl, wringing out the gore and filth, turning the water pink, “But a Hårga pilgrimage can take over a decade. So in fact, you are lucky that yours has only taken a few days.” 

Goosebumps break out like firecrackers in the watery wake of the dishrag, diligently wiping away any grime or clinging crust. Pelle drags the rag over his hips, down his legs, he feels every drop, every fiber; the skin is shockingly alive while the dense muscle beneath sits dead. 

He’s not a small man, had always been the biggest kid in class, always had a natural confidence in his physical presence, even if he hadn’t been a star athlete. Now, he’s like an infant, or a stillborn, laid out wet, naked and helpless, incapable of even begging for his life.

It’s a brutal tidal wave of vulnerability. That feeling alone might kill him before they do. 

In the distance rings a long anguished howl, he almost believes he imagined it, but a series of mimicking cries echo it shortly after. It happens again, resonating with him. It was familiar. (Dani!) 

New adrenaline sends a volt up his spine as he tries desperately to see over the inside of the bear maw, to no avail. He knows her voice, her sobs, they sound the same as they did that day. There’s no telling what’s happening to her, what they’re doing to her. His eyes dart to Pelle, not expecting an explanation but needing to see if he can read anything at all. 

But Pelle’s not looking at him. His hands lay frozen and forgotten on his naked shin, attention on the window as well. There’s a tightness about his mouth, his face lined with what might be guilt, or concern. 

When he notices him watching, he composes himself with an easy smile and gives his knee a reassuring squeeze. “You surprise me, you know.” He continues naturally, running the wet rag up his hip, brushing along his cock. If he hadn’t thought he could be degraded anymore, his blooming erection proves him wrong. 

Pelle’s eyebrows rise in amusement, “And you surprise me still.” He chuckles, wringing water over his chest.

Unable to bare the humiliation, he looks away, at something, at anything. Just focus on anything else. “Don’t be embarrassed. You’re vigorous, I’ll give you that.” He reassures him, “I had thought someone with your..vitality and spontaneous nature would appeal to Maja. You’re a strong match, you know.”

His breathing slows, the wheels turn, and he begins to understand. Albeit much too late. Oh God. (Holy shit..) The drink, the runes, Siv had known his Astrology sign. 

“I had not expected you to reject the offer.” Pelle grins wryly, even apologetically. “It would have been easier if you hadn’t.”

The ringing in his ears returns, and the room is a million miles away. It’s too hot, his skin is a prison. This whole fucking time.

The sudden absence of the wash cloth barely registers, his mind sorting through every memory, every kind word, every hug, every smile. He can hear Pelle moving to his left and there’s a swift yank at his foot, catching him off guard. When he looks down, Pelle is looping the long pick through the edge of fur and animal skin. 

He’s stitching it shut. Stitching him shut.

His heart thumps double time, his eyes beseeching Pelle, imagining him sewing him completely shut. Letting him suffocate slowly in a cocoon of death and rot. 

None of his immediate panic or panting noises register, like he hadn’t heard him at all. “You present yourself as much more indecisive than you are, do you know that? But,” He pauses thoughtfully, “perhaps you enjoy others making your decisions.”

It’s hard to focus on what he’s saying while he’s watching blood-soaked fur, creeping ever higher, swallow his leg whole. Pelle’s hands work slow but meticulously, threading the needle through with precision. 

“You can’t see it now, but bringing you here was a great mercy.” 

“Do you know what you would do back there?” He queries as he yanks the thread tight, “The same as the others. Write a paper no one would read to earn a degree you didn’t care about so you can do the research for someone else’s paper that no one will read.”

At that, Pelle tosses him a side glance, adding. “If you are very, _very_ lucky, of course.”

It’s a morbid lecture he might expect from Josh, under very different circumstances. Not from him, though. Josh had always held a certain amount of disdain for him and his disregard for academia. Mark had never cared one way or the other. 

Pelle though..

He had been nothing but supportive. Nothing but gentle, encouraging words, patient proof reading, never kicking him when he was down or failed. 

It hits something weak inside him, something bruised and so tender. It lands harder because it’s _him_ saying it. 

Not Josh, not his dad, not Dani with her patronizing coddling. 

Pelle hums a soft tune he’s heard before while his fingers work on the stomach seam. “The ceremony is relatively short, you won’t have to wait long. It’s mostly pageantry really.” 

Sick as it is, that at least comforts him a little. If he doesn’t manage to escape, hopefully it’ll be quick. 

“All of us here are Viking descended, but I’m sure you knew that.” The lower half of the suit takes shape around his legs. 

“To escape the endless cycles of war and infighting, those that wanted to start anew, return to the old ways journeyed here,” Pelle continues, “Our ancestors created something new. We eschewed property, violence, jealousy, ambition and created thousands of years of harmony and prosperity. We thrived in a harmony we molded from the world’s chaos.” 

They did not eschew all human defects, apparently. Josh studied Viking civilization for nearly 2 years before coming here. He wished he’d paid more attention. Although what good did that do Josh in the grand scheme of things?

“The pilgrimage is something we’ve kept from our ancestors. Typically warriors would go on four year raiding campaigns, make a life for themselves with the treasures they brought with them.” A sharp * _Click_ * sets off alarm bells and he looks down to see Pelle sawing through a stray leather thread with a serrated knife. 

“Now all we bring back are offerings, to the Gods and also to the Hårga.” He explains.

She was right.

Dani was right...

‘ _These are Pagan rituals, Christian! We shouldn’t be here!’_ The world is unfeeling, immovable, without care or pity. He walked, literally skipped along, right into it. 

The drugs, the pushy women, crumbled bodies strewn with splattered intestines slathered on well sunned rocks. He’d watched, and hadn’t seen any of it. Taking pride in how objectively, how rationally, he observed it all. They hid nothing, every act committed in broad daylight, like lions stalking them through the bush. Grinning while they bashed their brains in. 

Giggling at them in their death rattles. While he watched.

“There’s no need to fight.” Pelle continues. “That’s how we survived, it might save you as well.” 

He glances frantically at his soothing face, desperately searching for any clue or falsehood. It feels like a trick, it probably is, but he’ll cling to anything.

His friend chuckles at the sudden enthusiasm. “I told you, you’re lucky. I’m not the one who chooses your destiny. The ultimate decision isn’t for Hårgathis year, actually,” Pelle elaborates. “It’s a pity, but new for Midsommar, so the others are excited.”

A way out. There’s a small, however obscure chance, but that was all he needed. 

......

...Wait...

“You may, or may not, know her better,” One following the other, Pelle’s hands come to frame his face and he gazes up, up, up at the twisted upside down crescent of his smile, “So you tell me, do you think she will welcome you back? Even now?” His grin breaks into a wince of sympathy he doesn’t feel, “That would be surprising, wouldn’t it?”

A heavy stone drops to the bottom of his gut, into the deepest depths of his bowls and pins him there. They’re gonna make Dani do it..She wont-Its not..it’s fucking _ludicrous_! Dani’s never hurt anyone. She would never, not for this, not to him.

..But.

‘ _Do you not love me anymore?’_

And he’s not sure. About love, or Dani.

There wasn’t time to answer. He couldn’t even begin to if he wanted. He just turned on his heel and made a hasty retreat away from her, cold terror pouring over his heart like ice water. 

He ran from the question, the future, the relationship, and right into this.

Pelle quietly strokes his jaw, either to calm the dawning panic he sees rising in his eyes or cajole him, he can’t tell. “I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure myself when you reconciled so easily this morning. And Siv was unwilling to press Maja’s offer a second time.” His hands still, all but one finger that taps slowly against his jugular of its own accord. “However, unlike Siv, sister Ulla has a weakness for young love.” 

The toasted blonde woman that had offered him that last drink. He’d thought it might be laced with E, the way she was swaying and slurring, shoving another sloshing drink into his hand. He’d taken it before it spilled, annoyed but not wanting to argue. 

and then-

“I was serious, when I said you surprise me. It did not seem possible, that your relationship would survive the journey, yet...” Pelle trails off with a weak shrug. “Perhaps you _would_ know better than I would.”

There’s a picture, right in front of him, if he takes only a few steps back he’ll see it. But each brush stroke is horrible, blinding; painting something completely mad. A dull screeching of stool leg on wood makes him cringe, then Pelle is sitting with his elbows inches from where his neck lay on the table. 

“Did you ever see Disney’s Jungle Book?” He inquires as though they were in school still, just a classmate asking to borrow his notes, “I was a fan of Rudyard Kipling’s series when I was little. A bit different from the movies. In the book, Mowgli is unable to ever return to his people. He’d stayed gone too long in the world of Beasts, leaving him unfit for life in the world of Man.” An unexpected sigh escapes him.

“Like Mowgli,” He mutters more to himself than anyone, “maybe I spent too long away from home as well.” The thump-thump- _thump_ of his finger near his cheek makes the hair along his neck stand on end. 

It’s all unintelligible ramblings he can’t decipher. His return to consciousness remains intangible and dreamlike, his not-friend’s insane monologue doesn’t help on that front. Out of silence, the distant wailing returns. His heart races faster, his eyes try to catch a glimpse of the window as if that would reveal the smallest life boat. 

There’s nothing, just the crooning sobs and yowling mimicry that follow. But he’s sure it’s Dani-

Pelle is staring in the same direction, looking torn between continuing his work here and acting on whatever lay outside the window. He pays him no mind, finger tap-tapping gently, as he lay there paralyzed in a cocoon of poison and fear. It’s an eternity before Pelle finally speaks to him again.

“After the fire, the isolation, after years on his odyssey, Mowgli returns to his jungle home, and with a wife,” Pelle recounts the story like you would a secret you regret not keeping, “they have a son together and watch him grow; the new forest growing from the ashes along with him like a brother.”

He’d been in a car accident once, right before his high school graduation. Broken his leg and collarbone in 3 places. Sometimes he still dreams of these bright, Godly, headlights growing and growing until they swallow him whole. 

Pelle’s teeth shine like those lights. 

“I will tell you something, just you,” He starts with a hungry smile, a middle school buddy passing a note, “I have my intuition of course, but I don’t know for a certainty what Dani will do. She _could_ offer you up for the fire...” 

The fire..

Several possibilities present themselves, none less terrifying than the other. 

He remembers Dani sobbing in his arms that night, He remembers himself waiting in the lobby while she identified their bodies, remembers himself shackled to her endless well of grief and longing, unable to stay, unwilling to leave. 

He wasn’t happy, he can’t say that, but he was needed. Nobody had ever needed him before. Friends hung with him interchangeably, his parents loved him, asking little of him and expecting even less. Dani was the only one who ever really needed him.

He hated it as much as he loved it.

With a tiny screech like nails on chalkboard, Pelle rises, moving to the head of the table. When he leans over again, they’re eye to eye in a reverse mirror of each other.

“If she doesn’t,” He whispers, gentle as a kitten, “I will kill you myself.”

The breath that leaves him ruffles the curls hanging at his chin. No more time for metaphors or implications, no more time for guessing. No more time at all.

Pelle smiles, all white gleaming teeth, its blinding and all consuming. “You should take a little pleasure at least, in the knowledge that a part of you will continue on in Maja.” His thumb strokes under his jaw. “Dani and I will look after him with the others, as we would our own.”

A pregnant pause lingers, a stray finger hovering over his carotid artery before applying the faintest pressure, ”As we _will_ our own.”

The sharp, piercing ringing returns in full. He’s going to be sick. His gut rolls and clenches, and he manages the most pitiful of squeaks through his nose. Oh God..

He’s spinning into the ether and there’s nothing to grip, his whole world crumpled and thrown down a ravenous garbage disposal. 

Pelle takes it all in good humor. “Your God doesn’t reign here, my friend.” His eyes are wide pools of ice and feathers, staring through him and glinting with mischief. 

“And our world is no place for Christians.”


End file.
